


Blank Canvas

by pollitt



Category: Poppy Z Brite - Drawing Blood
Genre: M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/pseuds/pollitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Trevor, life is now a blank canvas that he and Zach can create their reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blank Canvas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Blue Escapist](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Blue+Escapist).



> Thanks, as always, to Maverick for her beta work.

The back of Trevor's neck felt naked as he ran his fingers through the short locks. Once the plan had come together, the first thing that Zach had done--after he had appropriated the credit card number of a stock broker from LA and secured their tickets--was to grab a pair of scissors and sit Trevor down on a chair. Twenty minutes later Trevor's hair was piled on the floor, leaving him with a mess of blond sticking up in all directions.

"New life, new place, new look, Trev," Zach had said, pulling Trevor to his feet and out of the shack and toward their cove.

\---------- 

The decision was made not in a fit of pique, or paranoia, or, like their last time, in a mad escape from the ghosts--corporeal and otherwise--that had been hunting them, but one hot humid morning. Zach had been asleep next to Trevor, his face buried in the pillow and the long, pale line of his back an unmarred canvas that Trevor loved to draw on--with his tongue, fingers, sometimes even with a marker or pen that they'd picked up on their last trip into town--spread out underneath Trevor's hand. Trevor has been sketching in invisible lines over the still pale skin when Zach had shifted, turning onto his back and Trevor's hand had followed the movement, resting finally over Zach's heart, his thumb brushing over Zach's nipple.

"We should go somewhere," Zach said, his eyes opening, a flash of brilliant green in the early morning light.

"To Negril? Up to the farm?" Trevor asked, leaning forward to lick a line of salty sweat from Zach's pale throat.

After five years on the island, Zach's skin was no longer rice paper pale, a light tan had clung to him.

"Somewhere else. Somewhere new." Zach took Trevor's right hand in his own, running his thumb down Trevor's life line. "Where you can draw so people can see it."

"I don't need--"

"Yeah, you do. You're fingers are itching to start something new, and I know your editors would come on the spot for your next comic. We could find a place. Get a real bed. We could get lost in the crowd."

"Where would we go?" A new life started to take form in his mine, hasty scratch marks turning into images--a caf, an apartment that was their own, was _theirs_ , and a bedroom, a real bed, and Zach gloriously naked and stretched out, smiling at Trevor.

"Why not Amsterdam? Civilization. Technology." Zach sighed. "Think of all the new technology that's out there. Espresso so strong the smell alone is a day's caffeine fix."

"Hash bars."

"Exactly." Zach smiled, shifted so he could straddle Trevor's waist and look down at him. "So what do you say?"

"You've been thinking about this." Trevor touched the faint lines on Zach's chest, memories of their past and all that they had endured fluttering at the edge of his mind. It felt like another lifetime, another person.

Maybe Zach was right, it was time to shed this skin, to leave this haven that they had created while they rebuilt themselves and discovered one another, and to truly start a life together. For so many years Trevor had felt alone, had _been_ alone, but now, he couldn't imagine his life without Zach in it. Their life.

"So?" Zach said, pushing on Trevor's chest.

"When could we leave?"

Trevor could feel Zach's shout vibrate in his chest. Zach leaned forward, his dreads falling in front of his face, brushing against Trevor's cheeks before Zach's lips found his and their bodies slid together.

\----------

"Turnabout is fair play," Trevor said, picking up the pair of scissors once they'd returned from the cove, water dripping from his hair, ears and nose.

Zach looked horrified, his hands instantly going up to his dreads. Trevor waited, opening and closing the scissors rhythmically.

\----------

The passport in his hand gave his name as Trevor Joplin--it had been Zach's idea, a way to let him hold onto the McGee name--his life a blank sheet of paper for him, for them, to create. Happy families and picket fences, school pageants and high school and college graduations. Family trips to Disney World and first dates, second dates. Lives with no scars and demons, no Joe, no Bobby, no Birdland.

According to Zach's passport, he was Shaun Bartlett from New York, born two years before his actual birth date, and waiting for them when they arrived in Amsterdam was a nice IT job for Mr. Bartlett with a networking company.

Trevor's editors had been practically orgasmic when he'd called and said he was ready to start drawing again. They'd sat in an Internet cafe the night before reading the message boards and the chatter about the return of Trevor McGee and his mysterious five-year absence. Pre-orders were already being taken for the premiere issue of "Redemption," and its release date was a year away.

\----------

Colin had invited them up to the farm for one final weekend before they left. He'd fallen over with laughter when he first saw their haircuts, and spent the rest of the weekend chuckling to himself.

Zach ate scotch bonnet peppers until there were tears in his eyes, and Trevor knew it wasn't just from the fiery taste.

They left the shack as they'd found it, plus some drawings on the far wall--sketches of Zach asleep, beautiful and fragile and beloved.

Zach carved their names below the drawings, their bags in hand.

\----------

"You ready to go, Trev?" Zach had on a pair of sunglasses, his jeans were slung low on his hips and Trevor could see the curve of his hipbone where Zach's shirt had ridden up. His hair was shorter now than it had been when Trevor first met and fell in love with him, and Trevor felt his heart hammering in his chest.

Trevor nodded and took Zach's outstretched hand and let Zach haul him to his feet. He wrapped his arm around Zach's waist, kissing him and kept kissing him until they announced final boarding for Air Jamaica Flight 27 to Amsterdam.

 


End file.
